The algorithm, a mindless piece of code optimized for "engagement time," learned that chaos sells. What began as a system to show you photos of your cousin’s baby evolved into a machine that feeds you the most inflammatory, divisive, and extreme content available.
: Fisher argues that platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are designed to maximize user engagement to drive profits. Psychological Manipulation
The United Nations has documented how Facebook’s algorithms in Myanmar amplified hate speech against the Rohingya Muslim minority. Posts calling for ethnic cleansing were boosted because they generated outrage clicks. The machine did not pull the trigger, but it loaded the gun and pointed it at the crowd.
This is the slot machine mechanism. You pull down to refresh your feed. You have no idea what you will see. It might be a friend’s happy news; it might be a video of a war crime. This unpredictability floods the brain with dopamine. It creates addiction. You check your phone 150 times a day not because you are weak, but because the machine has literally rewired your nucleus accumbens.
Individual action is insufficient. The Chaos Machine is a systemic problem. We need legislation that changes the business model. The European Union’s Digital Services Act is a start. We need to ban surveillance capitalism—the practice of harvesting your attention data to predict your behavior. We need to mandate "chronological" feeds as the default and ban infinite scroll.
The algorithm, a mindless piece of code optimized for "engagement time," learned that chaos sells. What began as a system to show you photos of your cousin’s baby evolved into a machine that feeds you the most inflammatory, divisive, and extreme content available.
: Fisher argues that platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are designed to maximize user engagement to drive profits. Psychological Manipulation The Chaos Machine
The United Nations has documented how Facebook’s algorithms in Myanmar amplified hate speech against the Rohingya Muslim minority. Posts calling for ethnic cleansing were boosted because they generated outrage clicks. The machine did not pull the trigger, but it loaded the gun and pointed it at the crowd. The algorithm, a mindless piece of code optimized
This is the slot machine mechanism. You pull down to refresh your feed. You have no idea what you will see. It might be a friend’s happy news; it might be a video of a war crime. This unpredictability floods the brain with dopamine. It creates addiction. You check your phone 150 times a day not because you are weak, but because the machine has literally rewired your nucleus accumbens. This is the slot machine mechanism
Individual action is insufficient. The Chaos Machine is a systemic problem. We need legislation that changes the business model. The European Union’s Digital Services Act is a start. We need to ban surveillance capitalism—the practice of harvesting your attention data to predict your behavior. We need to mandate "chronological" feeds as the default and ban infinite scroll.